May 10, 2011

... of a lengthy new article in The Atlantic. I haven't read it. I've been staring at the odd illustration, a weirdly masculinized painting of Palin. That title and that painting... so angsty... so expressive of something eating at the hearts of Palin-haters.

It's an interesting rendering of her. I agree that it is masculinized, primarily through an inaccurate representation of her jawline. She is also presented with an expression that I have not seen in any other photo of her. In most images she is smiling and showing teeth. The only expression I have seen of her with mouth closed is more an expression of determination with her lower lip pressed against the upper.

"What went wrong?" What went wrong?! Well, Josh, what went wrong is that the left beat the sh*t out of her. They brutalized her; they mocked her, hunted her, lied about her, trumped up charges against her and blew things out of proportion to tarnish her, slimed, smeared, and slandered her, pornogrified her, sent swarms of journalists to harass and invade her privacy, and generally engaged in an unprecedentedly vicious campaign to destroy her from the moment she walked onto that stage in Ohio. Indeed, Josh, it was your former stablemate Andrew "Sullivan" Sullied who developed an obsession with her uterus. So what went wrong, Josh? I always like to get my hen news from the foxes.

The hatred the left has for this accomlished woman is both interesting and disturbing.

What causes Dane County residents to go to the Wisc state capital when she speaks there, raise their right (or left) arms in the air, stick up their middle fingers, and chant in unison "fuck you, fuck you, fuck you, fuck you, fuck you, fuck you, fuck you"?

And also to see nothing wrong with doing that and being filmed doing that.

From the article: ...a look at what Palin did while in office in Alaska—the only record she has—shows a very different politician: one who worked with Democrats to tame Big Oil and solve the great problem at the heart of the state’s politics. That Sarah Palin might have set the nation on a different course. What went wrong?

What went wrong? She was lynched, asshole.

One of the things I hate most about the media is the make-believe that they are innocent of the propaganda they spread.

The Lefties are scared to death of her and have been trying the full Alinsky on her.

Apparently, with only slight success.

"she was seen as an unbending, hard-charging, red-meat ideologue—to which soon was added 'thin-skinned' and 'vindictive.'"

Gee, I wonder who "saw" her that way.

Fred said...

Actually, it looks like a painting of Katrina vanden Heuvel, after she discovered her daughter had hung the United States flag in the window.

I thought that was Katha Politt.

PS Not a bad likeness, but she has become quite the beauty in the last year or so and the snark that drew the picture came close enough that anyone who's seen other photos will recognize the strength and determination that an objective photograph shows mixed with a beguiling femininity.

Chuck, they scream "fuck you" because she blasphemed Little Black Jesus, treating him like the tangle-tongued stooge he is rather than a world-striding colossus.

And if you can stomach it, wade through the comment thread. The lefty scum (but I repeat myself) ratchet themselves up into incandescent rage insisting Palin can neither read, nor write, nor speak, though I guarantee you they all consider Bill Ayers' "Dreams From My Father" as the grestest contribution to American belles-lettres since Hawthorne.

Oh, and Simon - spot on. Now watch the usual gang of idiots come here and prove your point in spades.

@edutcher -- Agreed. The article is full of such assertions as evidence.

Of the trumped-up ethics complaints that bankrupting her finances and interfering with her official duties Green writes:

After the election, Palin returned to being governor, but she didn’t last long. She says unwarranted ethics investigations are what prompted her to quit. Most Alaskans seem to think she left to get rich.

No reporting going on here. There are pop songs that contain more facts.

Of course Green is a guy that thinks the McCain campaign "turned hard right."

Disclaimer: I only read the prologue paragraph. They ask what went wrong?

Really? What went wrong? Don't they know?

What went wrong was that the liberal establishment saw a woman with charisma and decided she must be destroyed. This deliberate destruction of her reputation began the first weekend after McCain announced her as his running mate and has continued to this day. Her record had little to do with it.

The fact that her actual record looks vastly different from her media caricature is largely irrelevant now.

I read the full article. It is very Pro-Palin. Who would have guessed that? Maybe the time has come that Obama, Inc. wants to set her up as the noble victim of the powerful GOP Rove/Daniels machine. The vote splitting of the GOP is Obama's 2012 hole card.

Crawford's not far from the mark-- Josh Greenberg actually seems to be praising Sarah Klondike, as like a moderate, when any rational person knows she's a raving right-wing nutcase. Maybe that's what those corporate-liberal hipsters at the Atlantic secretly want.

Notice I say 'biased'--it is not an intentional attack, but the biases of the writer so color it that it ends up being an attack all the same.

Every time the writer tries to understand Palin, his biases get in the way; so when she deviates from what he thinks 'Republican Principles' are, he has to find an explanation: she was pursuing power, being opportunistic, or whatever. She's upset about people spreading rumors about her, she's being oversensitive. She says she quit because of the lawsuits, he casts doubts on the explanation.

@traditionalguy -- I don't agree. Certainly the idea that Palin ever did anything worthy in her life may be news to the readers of the Atlantic, but the article doesn't really praise Palin as she is. It praises a Palin that once was before she was devoured from within by the monstrous Palin of the now.

You may be right that the dems think that if they help Palin fix her image and reputation enough with voters, she will join the race and fracture the GOP. There's already some talk that repubs are willing to support a third party candidate. I think the dems think that if they help rehabilitate Palin, she'll mount a third-party candidacy, handing the election to little zero.

Of course, that assumes she either couldn't win the GOP primary on her own by dirctly appealing to the voters, or that the GOP would sabotage her efforts, as the dems did with Hillary.

I'm pretty sure assumption number one is just wrong -- she can win the primary if she chooses to run. Assumption number 2, however, could come to pass, especially with haters like Lisa Murkowski still holding influence in the party.

I have a feeling, though, even running on a third-party ticket, Palin could beat the pants off little zero... because, after all, it's the economy, stupid.

Henry...OK, I see your point that in the article the liberal agenda is presumed as correct. My point is that is still the first major media piece about Palin that lets it out of the bag that she is a super competent and skillful politician who keeps her eye on the prize. Until now she has 100% been portrayed as a ditzy, trailer park ignorant girl who was in it for whatever money she could get for herself. Why the sudden change? They want a sympathy vote for her after the Rove/Daniels machine trashes Palin because she won't play point guard their way. I bet she clobber the Rove/Daniels guys, and then the old memes about her will reappear.

The acknowledgement that the Left can quickly organize to completely destroy the electability of a popular, moderately conservative candidate, promoting visceral hatred from the guts of ordinary people.

Meanwhile, the Right cannot prevent the election of someone as flagrantly broken as Obama.

That is the tragedy, and the end of the premise that American Democracy is a tool of liberty.

Green seems like he's trying to be fair. But let's face it: liberals simply don't understand conservatives well enough to write about them. Palin supporters see themselves as culture warriors? I don't see that. The most common statement I hear is that Palin supporters believe she is an unapologetic conservative, which they take to mean that once elected she won't betray conservative positions.

But Green is right about one prediction: her resignation as governor is a fatal blow to her chances at the Presidency. It is an undeniable fact Democrats and the media can point to to support their narrative. Voters who decide presidential elections will never hear enough of the story to not consider this a huge negative.

Since she's never been asked to demonstrate the skill in public, your "sorta doubt" is typical leftist trolling.

However, we DO know - from his own lips - that among the plethora of things your Little Black Jesus does not understand we may include: comprehensive insurance coverage, the pronounciation of the word "corpsman," the distinction between the Medal of Honor and the "Congressional Medal of Honor" or knowledge that the Mount Rushmore scene in "North By Northwest" was filmed on a stage set and not on the mountain itself.

What went wrong is that she was 1) an undefined personality on the national stage at the time of the nomination; and 2) she was running against Obama. The media, obviously in the tank for Obama, took it upon themselves to define her to the national public in a way that would help Obama. Plus the left was (and largely still is) so utterly unhinged that they need two-minutes-of-hate figures.

The goal of the mediaswine is to smear anyone on the right - particularly any woman or minority - who appears to have the charisma to get elected President and to guide the U.S. away from progressive-led national suicide.

Sarah does have nice tits.Probably a tasty brunette landing strip as well.

But I sorta doubt she ever mastered long division.

refudiate that, mutha-f-ers

As a business woman, Miss Sarah certainly knew her math. Her Bachelor's degree refudiates it nicely, but then, foul mouth forgets we still don't know how Little Zero got from Occidental to Columbia to Haavahd. If he was as bad a student as The Donald says, he may not even know subtraction.

The Atlantic has been in turbo-Palin mode since 2008. In the "voices" column, you can't go a single day without at least two pieces referencing Palin. It used to be three before Sullivan moved to the Daily Beast.

With all the talk about the lackluster GOP roster of candidates, I can see that the lefties are beginning to worry that she might really be the candidate. This was an exercise of damning with faint praise.

She wrote an angry e-mail because someone said that Todd wasn't Track's father. Would any other person in politics have such an accusation thrown at them ? John McCain made a joke about Janet Reno being Chelsea Clinton's father and he was apologizing for the next six months.

I'm beginning to think she might really run. I favor Mitch Daniels but there is an unfortunate tradition in presidential politics of the tallest guy winning. Paul Ryan may not want to face the stuff she has had to deal with but the left has fired all their ammunition at her. Could she restore her reputation with independents ? I don't know. It looks to me like the Atlantic thinks she may run.

That Sarah Palin might have set the nation on a different course. What went wrong?

Leftards became completely unhinged and deranged at the thought of her being in higher national public office and set about one of the most vicious personal attack campaigns I've seen against anyone in my lifetime and it's made her slightly bitter, much wealthier, and I believe removed her from 2012 and if GOP wins the WH and does well, possibly 2016 as well.

That projection is an excellent example in a nutshell of the reason Palin scares the bejesus out of the marching moron component on the left that J represents. The fact that Palin, a woman, a conservative, and a red stater, can effortlessly and succinctly expose the left's inanities just plain twists the shite right out of them.

"However, we DO know - from his own lips - that among the plethora of things your Little Black Jesus does not understand we may include: comprehensive insurance coverage, the pronounciation of the word "corpsman," the distinction between the Medal of Honor and the "Congressional Medal of Honor" or knowledge that the Mount Rushmore scene in "North By Northwest" was filmed on a stage set and not on the mountain itself."

Pretty much this.

It still gets me that that jugeared buffoon didn't know how to say the word "corpsman". Politicians have slips of the tongue and get their wires crossed all the time. But that mistake was just pure ignorance.

Sarah does have nice tits. Probably a tasty brunette landing strip as well.

But I sorta doubt she ever mastered long division.

This is all you have on your deranged hatred of Palin? You know, I thought leftards were stupid because they their arguments are just on the emotional, classless deviancy they carry around in their heads. Thanks for finally proving it.

Chuck66 said..."Let's not forget that Barry said taht we have 57 states."

When are we going to let this drop? I'm so tired of this soundbite. It doesn't mean anything and its constant regurgitation just makes us look petty, as if nothing stupider has ever come out of his mouth. Tired people sometimes make trivial slips of the tongue. That's all it was.

In a perfect world, Simon, I would absolutely agree with you. But here I must respectfully dissent. Having endured eight years of subliterate clowns like J use Dubya's pronunciation of "nuclear" and his occasional verbal tangles ("is our children learning?") as examples of his retarded chimpness, forgive me if I have no intention of cutting the Indonesian Imbecile or his cadre of kneepad-wearing felchers any slack.

Democrats have absolutely no leg to stand on when it comes to complaining about shoving this right back down their treasonous throats as far as I'm concerned, "petty" or not.

Simon... Very much agreed. Anyone who has spent any time in front of a mic, either speaking or singing for that matter, will have had silly slips like this. 20 to 1 says he didn't even realize he said 57 instead of 50.

I've spent some time in front of a mic, both talking and singing, but mostly singing. One time, while singing "Hotel California", a song I had performed a billion times, instead of singing "mirrors on the ceiling, pink champaign on ice", I sang "Champaign on the ceiling...". And yes, the mate will never let me forget it.

Simon... Very much agreed. Anyone who has spent any time in front of a mic... will have had silly slips like this. 20 to 1 says he didn't even realize he said 57 instead of 50.

During 30 years in politics and courtrooms and thousands of speeches, etc., not to mention the speeches by others I've endured, I've never screwed up or heard anyone else screw up second nature history/geography like that.

Your 20-1 might be better placed on "he realized he said 57 and didn't realize it was wrong."

Christopher in MA said..."In a perfect world, Simon, I would absolutely agree with you … [but] Democrats have absolutely no leg to stand on when it comes to complaining about shoving this right back down their treasonous throats…."

I agree, but I'm not a Democrat. It was juvenile and ignoble when they did it; what do we get out of "two can play that game"?

, I mean REALLY, think Obama didn't know there are 50 instead of 57 states in the union. I know it's fun to make fun and all, but do you really believe that?

• I don’t know, but he didn’t correct himself?• All I can say is, IF the evillll Boooosh ChimpyMcHitler or the Alaska Chillbilly had said this, SNL, Leno, Letterman and Jeremy would STILL be riff’ing on it. So I really don’t feel too bad for Obama.

I see the Small Pathetic Voice is back, no doubt having labored all weekend on its blog, only to, once again, draw few eyes and no comments…so instead it comes here to scream “Look at me”, it’s like Kesha or Lady Gaga in that respect. Only not as witty or erudite…..

Simon - I didn't mean to imply you were a Democrat or that I was shoving the "57 states" thing back in your face. Apologies if you thought I was slamming you.

As for your larger point, we must agree to disagree. My sympathy for most anyone voting left of center has been exhausted throughout the two terms of Bush's presidency. "We" get nothing out of it except the pleasure of rubbing the left's nose in their hypocrisy. Juvenile, I know. So I'm juvenile.

J man--you are a caricature of the modern left--illiterate, without thinking skills, and unable to mount any kind of coherent argument--I would suggest you go back to masturbating over your sarah palin fantasies and leave articulate thinking to the adults.

I'll venture one comment, considering my last foray on the Palin topic. I have new found respect for her now that she's apparently stopped making stuff up, an act by itself that distinguishes her clearly from the Jug Eared Messiah, who persists in that mode.

I am delighted she yanks knots in Progressive knickers. Seriously. I love watching the fearful dodge shadows. Even my better half is now speaking to again, as a result. Whoa!

Otherwise ... I don't like her, haven't since around 2006. My dislike, initially, had a lot to do with her conservation polices and practices and just who she was in bed with on that. Let's just say "science" wasn't part of her policy making.

That is no longer a concern, as the Republicans and Democrats in Congress passed a rider on the 2010 wrap up budget bill that effectively enacted her policies for some states. Shortly thereafter, last week in fact, the Obama administration via Dept of Interior, extended it by edict to the rest of the states as well.

I find that almost hilarious because of all organizations, Defenders of Wildlife and National Resource Defense Council, were among the strongest Obama advocates because they were just certain would do things their way. Whoops. Now they refuse to talk about their massive failure of influence ... and are again soliciting funds to support "special" progressive Congressional candidates.

So, as it goes today, I'm no longer a visceral Sarah hater. Like I said on another thread, I listen up and occasionally I learn stuff.

Stipulating that she wins the hardcore Republican vote, which includes me, that nets her about 33%. Where does the other 17% + 1 come from when polls have repeatedly found that independents loathe her?

The issue here is what makes independents break Democrat or Republican. We have already seen - November 2010 - that independents went Republican by a wide margin in an election that was essentially a referendum on Obama. If anything, the pain to their pocketbooks has worsened since that election. What independents don't like regarding Sarah is pretty much a MSM invention. As the Republican candidate they will get to see her unedited by the MSM. And for a long enough time to nullify the fiction they have been fed about her. They WANT to vote Obama out. All they need is an opponent they can accept as presidential. That will have been accomplished by Sarah, unedited, long before November 2012.

I read one paragraph this AM. It pissed me off so much I didn't read the rest.

What happened to her VOTING RECORD? You guys in the media IGNORED HER VOTING RECORD, you ASSHOLES, in favor fighting Ghosts of Christmas Past from your SUBCONSCIOUS (Anita Bryant?Phyllis Schlafly? Cheerleaders when you were dealing with a myopic Bball player?).

I think that in the long run, the problem with Gov. Palin is going to be the class issue. She is working class, while pretty much every other credible Republican candidate is upper middle class.

The problem is that the people she turns off on the right are the people who have run the Republican party since its inception. The Democrats, up until the last couple of decades when the intelligentsia took over the party, have always been more open to working class and populist candidates.

The problem is that she offends the upper middle class, left and right. She doesn't have our sensibilities. And, part of it is that she doesn't show proper respect to those who think themselves her betters.

It is interesting though that the people most discomforted by her are on the left. It wouldn't have been that way 30, 50, etc. years ago. It is mostly the intelligentsia, including all those academics, and others who think that they know so much better how we should all live our lives.

And, yes, she esp. does not accept the superiority, in any way, of that segment of the population. Just because they have Ivy League degrees, or at least hang out with people who do, doesn't seem to intimidate her one little bit. When they are in the MSM, she just goes around them and ignores them, getting her message out, despite their best attempts to dismiss her. And, of course, the harder they try, the weaker they end up.

The problem is that she is not stupid by any means. She turns out to be quite bright, but lacks the proper polish, which allows the national fool, Joe Biden, to continue to tell such whoppers without any recrimination from those who are listening to how he says things, and not what he says.

She, also, early on, lacked a lot of the training and knowledge expected of a candidate at that level. Not surprising, of course, given her history of moving from local politics to running a state so far out of the American mainstream. But her detractors ignore that she has done a very good job at coming up to speed on a number of important subjects, and has been able to provide critical insights there in ways that those locked into the convention wisdom have not.

How many people who vote read The Atlantic?How many people who vote ever heard of The Atlantic?Although it was devised as a negative article it is actually quite positive. The positive parts will prove useful and difficult to take back.I expect there is some maneuvering going on presently as various interests and forces focus on the coming elections. It will be interesting to see what powerful interests coalesce behind Palin, a process that may already be underway. Her new Hoover Institution foreign policy adviser may be a tell. How many housewives even have foreign policy advisers?

On the class issue, it plays directly to Palin's strengths. Look at the recent polls. Her strongest numbers come from the lowest income groups. These people can be found in swing states. Some of them were also once known as Reagan Democrats. Palin has been carrying on a dialogue with these voters for quite a while. Not in the pages of the Atlantic but on Dancing with the Stars, Facebook, and The Learning Channel.

Stipulating that she wins the hardcore Republican vote, which includes me, that nets her about 33%. Where does the other 17% + 1 come from when polls have repeatedly found that independents loathe her?

She gets half (or more)of them assuming that the economy is still in the toilet, inflation continues to push up, the housing markets stays flat or declines and gas stays at $4/gal or more. That's real, actual pain for the "little people" in America, and in America the "little people" vote.

She gets the other 8- 10% because she is honestly likable as a person, and has an ability to connect, really connect, with people that Obama only seems to have because the drive by media spends so much time and effort lionizing him. That's what a campaign is for, and it will give her the opportunity to bypass some, hopefully a lot, of the spin the press relentlessly pushes. This is evidenced by the fury with which the "unelectable" meme is pushed by the left. Their best shot is to keep her from running. If she gets out there-really gets out there as a strong candidate or the Republican nominee-they know it's Katie-bar-the-door time. I can't wait.

Stipulating that she wins the hardcore Republican vote, which includes me, that nets her about 33%. Where does the other 17% + 1 come from when polls have repeatedly found that independents loathe her?

She gets half (or more)of them assuming that the economy is still in the toilet, inflation continues to push up, the housing markets stays flat or declines and gas stays at $4/gal or more. That's real, actual pain for the "little people" in America, and in America the "little people" vote.

She gets the other 8- 10% because she is honestly likable as a person, and has an ability to connect, really connect, with people that Obama only seems to have because the drive by media spends so much time and effort lionizing him. That's what a campaign is for, and it will give her the opportunity to bypass some, hopefully a lot, of the spin the press relentlessly pushes. This is evidenced by the fury with which the "unelectable" meme is pushed by the left. Their best shot is to keep her from running. If she gets out there-really gets out there as a strong candidate or the Republican nominee-they know it's Katie-bar-the-door time. I can't wait.